Sonic Labs says its layer-1 blockchain will go public ‘soon’

Sonic Labs says its layer-1 blockchain Sonic will publicly launch “soon” after achieving Genesis — the first completed block of transactions on its chain.

“Genesis achieved. Block zero. Infrastructure deploying. Public soon,” Sonic Labs said in a Dec. 2 X post.

Sonic is a speed-focused Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchain that looks to offer innovators “attractive incentives and powerful infrastructure.“

It is seen as a successor to the existing Fantom Opera network — with the rebranding to Sonic to enhance network performance by reducing latency and transaction fees.

Sonic Labs is also receiving support from the Fantom Foundation — a nonprofit organization that has developed Fantom’s decentralized finance ecosystem since 2019.

The move closer toward public launch comes just a few days after Sonic unveiled an upgraded “testnet 2.0” named “Blaze” on Dec. 1.

Snapshot for S token airdrop complete

Meanwhile, Sonic also said it completed a “Snapshot” for its airdrop allocation of its “S” tokens on Dec. 2.

Roughly 200 million S tokens will be airdropped, which can be swapped with Fantom (FTM) tokens on a 1:1 basis. S airdrops were earnable through playing Sonic’s arcade games, such as Coinflip, Rock, Paper and Scissors, Plinko, and Mines. 

However, those games have officially closed as Sonic prepares for a public mainnet launch.

Sonic will run on a proof-of-stake mechanism, allowing S holders to stake their tokens.

Sonic aims to be the fastest EVM chain

The Sonic blockchain achieved a transaction finality — the time it takes for a transaction to become irreversible — of 720 milliseconds during its testnet — which could position it to compete with the likes of Solana and Base as the fastest EVM chains.

Sonic is also looking to become the go-to blockchain for developers as 90% of the network’s generated transaction fees are paid back to them, according to Andre Cronje, the company’s chief technology officer, who previously served as Fantom’s Chair and Technical Advisor between 2018 and 2022.

Related: Alchemy Pay reveals plans to launch layer-1 blockchain

The Fantom Foundation announced a $120 million FTM allocation to assist Fantom developers with migrating their projects from Fantom to the Sonic network in June. 

Only a month earlier, it announced the launch of the Sonic Foundation on May 23. 

The Sonic Foundation is tasked with overseeing Sonic’s governance, managing the treasury, orchestrating partnerships and developing a robust decentralized finance ecosystem.

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